The Game of Role Reversal

What I quite like about this version of the Page of Wands is that the woman in it is not a child. It highlights the fact that we all have a little bit of this excitable, and sometimes tetchy, figure within us, however old. She keeps her wand close to her and is focused on it's tip, rather than the path ahead. She wants to run before she can walk.

I don't argue with my parents often these days, but just had a heated argument with my dad; something over nothing. He can be like this Page of Wands sometimes -full of enthusiasm and fire when things are going as he wants, but chucks the toys out of the pram when you stand in his way and endeavour to extinguish the flames. Despite being the controlled and reasonable King of Swords usually, he has this less mature tarot figure nestled within his personality and can burst into childish rage on occasion when he doesn't get what he wants. Playing the parent in a game of role-reversal, I am damned if I am going to cave in and pander to the child in him today.

When it comes down to it, I don't have so many good things to say about the Wand courts. I find that they can be a little too in your face for my personal liking. This page doesn't work well with boundaries, which can cause her to tantrum and lash out, as my father did today. Her brother, the knight, although usually dynamic and smouldering with sex appeal, is not someone we can really depend on and is unpredictable. Anyone who reads this blog knows the negative view I have of the queen, and the King of Wands, who is dashing in this pack, can often be extremely controlling and egocentric. It is not a coincidence that more than a handful of tarot commentators compare him to Madonna. I can especially understand the face cards of Cups and Pentacles in general tarot as if they were members of my own family, but despite relating to the knight in some areas of my life, I tend to keep a lot of the more ill-dignified characteristics of this family at arms length in the people who I know and meet. I don't like pushiness, cockiness, or an unhealthy dose of ego.

The winds were raging last night and have left the day without sun and dowsed in rain. As I thought I might be, I was pretty exhausted when I got back this morning, so slept off my fatigue for a good three hours. Since our argument, my dad is in the spare room and I am in here, both with our doors shut. Knowing the Page of Wands well, he'll probably sulk his way through the remainder of the day, so this afternoon promises to be a quiet one.



Illustration from The Mystic Dreamer Tarot by Heidi Darras